NASCAR Dover TV Rating

UPDATE A challenging season of NASCAR on Fox came to an end this weekend with a 4.0/10 (6.1 million viewers) for racing from DOVER. Sunday's 4.0/10 is down -11% compared to last year's 4.5/11 for the same race, making nine straight regularly scheduled races that have been down double-digits compared to 2008. The 2009 season of NASCAR on FOX concludes with an average rating of 5.1/11 (8.5 mill.), down -11% compared to last year's 5.7/12 and a new low in the nine-year history of NASCAR On FOX.

FOX's NASCAR season suffered from a trio of negative on-track trends: more cautions, fewer lead changes, and lower average speeds. 649 laps were run under caution on FOX this season, a +15% increase over last year. Put another way, there was one caution flag for every 40 miles of racing this season. Last year it was one every 45 miles, in FOX's first NASCAR season (2001) it was one every 63 miles. Ten years ago it was one every 72 miles. Lead changes were down this year, with one coming every 20 miles compared to last year's once every 17 miles. That's at least one extra lap between lead changes, sometimes more. Average speed, which is obviously tied to number of cautions, was also down this year. This year's average speed during FOX races was 118mph. Last year it was 124mph. In 2001 it was 128mph, and in 1999 it was 130mph.(Fox)

06/01/09 Fox’s broadcast of Sunday’s Autism Speaks 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover International Speedway earned an overnight Nielsen Media Research rating of 3.6 and a 9 market share, Street & Smiths’s SportsBusiness Daily reports. The rating is 14.3 percent lower than the 4.2 Fox earned overnight for the race in 2008.